Business understanding, legal protection

David Molinari obtained a favorable judgment on behalf of our Client, a homeowner’s association, after a five day jury trial in North County San Diego Superior Court. This case involved a claim of continuing nuisance, involving water irrigation pumps located on our Client’s property. The Plaintiff, a neighboring landowner, claimed the pumps caused extreme noise while in operation and caused a loss of use relating to areas of his home. The Plaintiff sought damages and an injunction against our client’s use of the pumps. Both sides retained audio sound engineers that measured decibel readings when the pumps were in operation and recorded the ambient noise at the plaintiff’s property line when the pumps were in operation. Only the defense expert’s sound recording went to the jury, Plaintiff voluntarily did not introduce his recordings into evidence and Plaintiff’s expert did not submit their recordings or rely on the recordings to render opinions on Plaintiff’s behalf. The jury was instructed on what level of annoyance constitutes a nuisance under a “reasonable person standard.” Focusing on that standard, Mr. Molinari argued to the jury that they may use their own senses of sight and sound to see the location of the pumps, see the distance between the pumps and Plaintiff’s property and hear for themselves what, if any noise, was produced by the pumps and make a determination on the claim. The jury concluded a reasonable person would not have been annoyed and returned a defense verdict. The defense verdict allowed for the recovery of litigation costs incurred by our Client. This case went through our standard FMG roundtable process, conducted by our Trial Committee, which further supported this trial win and assisted in keeping the defense fees minimal.